XII
PROGRESS AS AN IDEAL OF ACTION
J. A. Smith
Throughout this course of lectures, now come to its close, we have together been engaged in a theoretical inquiry. We have been looking mainly towards the past, to something therefore for ever and in its very nature set beyond the possibility of alteration by us or indeed at all. 'What is done not even God can make to be undone.' Were it otherwise it could not be fact or reality and so not capable of being theorized or studied. In the words of our programme we have analysed what is involved in the conception of Progress, shown when it became prominent in the consciousness of mankind and how far the idea has been realized—that is has become fact—in the different departments of life. We have taken Progress as a fact, something accomplished, and have attempted so taking it to explain or understand it. We have not indeed assumed that it is confined to the past, but have at times enlarged our consideration so as to recognize its continuance in the present and to justify the hope of its persistence in the future. Some of us would perhaps go further and hold that it has, by these and similar reflections, come to be part of our assured knowledge that it must so continue and persist. But however we have widened our purview, what we call Progress has remained to us a course or movement which still presents the appearance of a fact which is largely, if not wholly, independent of us—a fact because independent of us—to which we can occupy no other attitude than that of interested spectators, interested and concerned, moved or conditioned by it but not active or co-operative in it. So far as it is in process of realization in the vast theatre of nature, inorganic or organic, dead or living, that surrounds us, it pursues its course in virtue of powers not ours and unamenable to our control. And even when we view it within the closer environment of human history its current seems to carry us irresistibly with it. Its existence is indeed of very practical concern to us, but apparently all we can do is to come to know it, and knowing it to allow for it as or among the set conditions of our self-originated or self-governed actions if such actions there be.
The clearer we have become as to the nature of Progress, the more it would appear that it must be for us, because it is in itself, a fact to be recognized in theory, taken into account and reckoned with. It is or it is not, comes to be or does not come to be, and what we have first and foremost to seek, is light upon its existence and character as it is or occurs. Light, we hope, has been cast upon it. We have learned that in its inmost essence and to its utmost bounds Reality—what lies outside and around us—is not fixed, rigid, immobile, was not and is not and cannot be as the ancient or mediaeval mind feigned or fabled, something beyond the reach of time and change—static or stationary—but is itself a process of ceaseless alteration. We have learned also to be dissatisfied with the compromise which, while acknowledging such alteration, all but withdraws it in effect by asserting it to be either in gross or in detail a process of mere repetition. The system of laws which science had taught us to consider as the truth of nature is itself now known to be caught in the evolutionary process, and to be undergoing a constant modification. As in the modern state, so in Nature, the legislative power is not exhausted but incessantly embodies itself in novel forms. Nature itself—natura naturans—is now conceived, and rightly conceived, as a power not bound to laws other than those which it makes for or imposes on itself, and as in its operations at least analogous to a will self-determined, self-governing, creative of the ways and means by which its purpose or purposes are achieved. What that purpose is we have begun to apprehend, and to see its various processes as converging or co-operating towards its fulfilment. In the mythological language which even Science is still obliged to use, we now speak of Nature as 'selecting' or 'devising', and we ascribe to it a large freedom of choice wisely used. We can already at least define the process as guided towards a greater variety and fullness and harmony of life, or (with a larger courage) as pointed towards a heightening or potentiation of life. So defining its goal we can sympathize with and welcome the successful efforts made toward it, and so feel ourselves at heart one with the power that carries on the process in its aspirations and its efforts. But still, we cannot help feeling, it and all its ways lie outside us, and to us it remains an alien or foreign power. I venture to repeat my contention that this is so just because, however much we come to learn of its ways, we do not feel that we are coming to understand it any better, getting inside it, as we do get inside and understand human nature. Its progress is a change, perhaps a betterment, in our environment—in externals—and takes place very largely whether we will and act or no. The larger our acquaintance with it, the more does its action seem to encroach upon the domain within which our volitions and acts can make any difference. Even in social life we seem in the grip and grasp of forces which carry us towards evil or good whether we will or no. Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. The whole known universe outside and around us presents to us the spectacle of what has been called a de facto teleology, and just because it is so, and so widely and deeply so, it leaves little or no room for us to set up our ideals within it and to work for their realization. The fact that the laws which prevail in it are modifiable and modified makes no difference; they modify themselves, and in their different forms still constrain us. And no matter how increasingly beneficent they may in their action appear, they are still despotic and we unfree. The rule of laws which Science discovers encroaches upon our liberties and privacies. What we had hitherto thought our very own, the movement of our impulses and desires and imaginations, are reported by science to be subject to 'laws of association', and we are borne onwards even if also at times upwards on an irresistible flood. We remain bound by the iron necessity of a fate that invades our inmost being—which will not let us anywhere securely alone. I repeat that it matters not how certainly the trend of the tide, which sets everywhere around and outside us, is towards what is good or best for us, it still is the case that it presents itself as neither asking for from us nor permitting to us the formation of any ideals of ours nor any prospect of securing them by our efforts. Were the fact of Progress established and conclusively shown to be all-pervasive and eternal, it still would bear to us the aspect of a paternal government which did good to and for us, but all the more left less and less to ourselves.
This will doubtless be pronounced an exaggeration, and we may weakly refuse to face the impression naturally consequent upon the progress we have made in the ascertainment of the facts concerning the world in which we live. But does not the impression exist? The hateful and desolating impression made on us earlier by the thought of a 'block' universe, once for all and rigidly fixed in unalterable and uniform subjection to eternal and omnipresent law, has dissolved like the baseless fabric of a vision. And why? Just because being found intolerable it was faced and put to the question. Now that there has been substituted for it the spectacle of a universe necessarily or fatally evolving—or, as we have said, progressing—does it not, while still evoking the old awe or reverence, do anything but still daunt and dishearten us? What is our part, we ask, our very own part within all this? What can we within it do? And the answer, that it is ours, if we will, to enter into and live in the contemplation of all this no longer appeals to us. In such a progressive universe we can no longer feel ourselves 'at home'. In it our active nature would seem to exist only to be disappointed and rebuffed.
The only progress which we can care for is the progress which we ourselves bring about, or can believe that we bring about, in ourselves or our fellows or in the world immediately around us. So long as what is so named is something devised and executed by a power not our own—not the same as our own—it may call out from us gratitude and reverence, but the spectacle of the reality of such Progress cannot exercise the attractive force nor, so far as it is realized, beget that creative joy which accompanies even humble acts in which we set an ideal of our own before ourselves, and see it through our efforts emerge into actual existence. A practical ideal must be through and through of our own making. It must be devised by us and set to ourselves for our pursuit, and its coming to be, or be real, must be our doing. The very idea of it must be our own, not given or prescribed, still less imposed, and the process towards it must be our doing too. That there should, on their view of it, ever be protest and rebellion against its tyrannous demands appears to me reasonable and right, and those who make it to be guarding the immediate jewel of man's nature. We should, we might say, if this were the whole truth about the universe, acknowledge ourselves as its sons bound to gratitude and obedience because of the fatherly care for us, but it would be an essential complement to our family loyalty that we should insist upon and make good our claims to be grown-up sons and fellow citizens, declining to pronounce it wholly good, if those claims were denied to us. Now all these conditions seem to make straight against the possibility of regarding Progress, in the view of it we have hitherto taken, as an ideal of our action.
In view of this character of the known fact of Progress, so discouraging and disabling to our active or practical nature, certain suggestions have been made which are thought to relieve us from these effects. It is said sometimes that this fatal—if beneficent or beneficial, still fatal—progress leaves as it were certain interstices in the universe within which it loses its constraining force, petty provinces but sufficient, where man is master and determines all events, from which even, it is sometimes conceded, some obscure but important influences are permitted to flow, modifying his immediate surroundings, little sanctuaries where the spirit that is in him and is his devises and realizes ideals of its own. But the notion of such sacrosanct and inviolable autonomies is being steadily undermined, and they are felt, as science becomes more dominant over our imaginations and emotions, to be no more than eddies in the universal stream, only apparently distinct and self-maintained, means made and broken for its purpose, really products and instruments of the world-progress. At any rate, it has been denied that they can rightfully be thought to stand outside it or themselves to exercise any effect upon their fortunes and their fate, still less upon their environment. Another suggestion fully and frankly acknowledges this, but though denying to us any power to affect either the form or the direction of the currents on which we are borne along, declares still open to us the possibility of affecting their speed, and bids us find satisfaction in the thought that by taking thought or resolve we can hasten or delay their and the universal movement. Still another view, abandoning even that hope, proclaims one last choice open to us, namely, that of sullen submission to, or glad and loyal acquiescence in, its irresistible sway. But surely all these suggestions are idle, and but for a moment conceal or postpone the inevitable conclusion that if Progress was, is and must or will be, that is, is necessary, what we think or do makes no difference, and can make no difference to or in it. Whether or no we convert the fact into an ideal, whether or no we set it before as our aim and exert ourselves to work for it, it goes on its way all the same. Either then it is not a fact, never was, and never will be a fact, or it is no possible ideal for which we can act. To be or become a fact, it must be independent of our action or our consent or our liking; if it is not all these it is not an ideal of action, or at any rate not so for us. I must repeat that what is or can be an ideal of action for us must be wholly and solely of our making, the very thought of it self-begotten in our mind, every step to its actual existence the self-created deed of our will. Not that either idea or act comes into being in a void or without suggestion and assistance from without us, but still so that the initiative lies in what we think or do, and so that without us it is unreal and impossible. It is enough, indeed, that we should be contributory, but the ideal must be such that without our irreplaceable co-operation it must fail. The only Progress in which we can take an active interest or make an ideal of action, is one which we conceive and execute, and that the fact we call Progress is not.